Jack's Pack
by shamrock920
Summary: Part III: Sequel to Favors of Riddick. Another scene into the life of Riddick and Jack, Jack's growing up. Language. Used mildly...almost.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Riddick universe or anything from it. **

**Dedicated unto Caz! Again! For the third time. This is the end of a three-part story. Hope you all liked it. **

**At least a two year distance between Favors of Riddick and this one. **

**Jack's Pack**

"Wait! Before you all run out of here, let me assign your weekend piece of writing," the teacher shouted over the bustling students and they all groaned, heavily sitting down into their desk seats. "Hold on…hold on…" the teacher mumbled, shuffling through some papers in his assignment folder.

"How about for a change we don't have a writing assignment?" One boy called out and the class winced. He was always getting in trouble for being so impolite.

"For the last time it's 'sir' and how about for a change you don't get sent to the principle's office because of your obnoxious attitude," the teacher replied and the boy paled.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled and slid lower into his seat, if it was even possible.

"Ah, here we go, write a three page paper, double-spaced, regular font on the importance of family relationships and use your own family as an example. This is due this coming Monday, no excuses this time, either," the teacher added, making some of the students chuckle nervously.

Jack sighed as she scribbled it down in her assignment book, capping the pen and tossing it in her bag along with the small book. She wondered idly if her teacher did this to her on purpose, just to spite her. Standing up, she pulled up her messenger bag and let it land on the desk and she checked to make sure she had everything. Just as she buckled the top flap of her bag closed, she saw the approaching feet and inwardly groaned. Boys.

"Hey Jacqueline," her name on his tongue sounded like poison. "I'm having a party at my parent's place tonight, they're out, well, my mother's in rehab and my dad's visiting this new brothel, so they're out. I'd absolutely," he slipped behind her and began to slide a hand up her thigh and beneath her short pleated black skirt. "Love," his warm breath tickled the back of her neck, "if you would come."

"Hmm…" Jack turned around in his 'embrace' and looked up at him. "I wouldn't come for you even if you were the last living male in the universe," and with that she slammed her foot on his and shoved him off her. "And since you're too stupid to shut up in class, I'd guess you'd be too stupid to realize that I declined your invitation," she added and shouldered the strap of her bag, walking out of the classroom.

Just as she left, her teacher fell in step with her.

"Quite the performance there, Ms. Jacqueline," he congratulated her and she smirked at him.

"Thank you, sir." She replied and nodded her head. "Have a good weekend," she added and he replied the same, walking towards the teacher's lounge.

She sighed heavily as she stopped in front of her locker and keyed in the lock code. It unlocked and she reorganized her books, taking ones she need for the weekend and ones she didn't, slamming the door closed again when she was done. As she walked towards the exit of her school, she tugged at her too-short skirt and frowned. She hated the uniform.

Black short pleated skirt, a three-quarter length white collared button up shirt, a tie and for the girls, black leather shoes. She had been pissed when she realized she couldn't wear her buckled boots but decided on a pair of simple leather shoes with a heel that wasn't to be messed with. The slutty girls had these knee-high socks, but Jack could barely see the white of her socks over her ankle. She had grown up, the shirt fitting snugly around her chest and the short skirt accenting her curves.

Stepping into the sun, she blinked a few times before continuing to walk, enjoying the pleasant weather. Jack continued to walk, the wind blowing out her short hair that could barely be pulled into a ponytail. She turned the corner and crossed a relatively large avenue, careful of the traffic as it sped past her. The streets were quieter again and she suddenly felt her cell phone vibrate and she checked the number and smiled when she saw who it was.

"Hey," she started, her voice soft.

"Good to hear your voice Jack," a voice replied and she sighed, "but you don't look too good," he added and her head snapped up.

"You're…"

"Here, c'mon, get on home." And with that, the call was cut. Jack stood there for a minute, glancing around at the buildings and then slipping her slim phone away in her bag, sprinted the rest of the way home.

She burst through the door and kicked it closed behind her and dropped her book bag. Before the sound of the closed door even finished, she had thrown herself onto him, nearly toppling him over.

"Riddick!" She exclaimed and hugged him tighter, nuzzling his warm chest as he carded his hands through her hair, kissing the top of her head gently.

"Hey Jack," he growled in his way of greeting and she smiled up at him and hugged him again.

"Missed you, you were overdue-"

"Too long, sorry for leaving you here like this." He apologized and Jack smiled, stepping away from him briefly.

"Don't say that, it isn't your fault and I got along just fine. I-" she was cut off when she heard her cell vibrate on the floor through her bag.

"Go get it," he said and she dashed to the door and rummaged her hand around and found her phone and flipped it open.

"How freaking stupid are you, Conner? I said-" she snapped and glared at the air, as if he were there.

"Fine, let me say it again, no. No. No, I'm not going and no I won't ever go. Shut up, this won't be the best party ever because every one you've ever thrown has ended up with half the guests in jail!" Jack raised her voice and then paled with anger at his reply.

"You can go fuck yourself if you think I'll even get within a ten foot-radius of you, Conner." She snarled and snapped the phone shut, tossing it back into her bag.

"Conner? Party? Jail?" He asked and Jack smiled tiredly at him.

"Boy who thinks he's some manly man and feels me up at school, he-"

"He does _what_ to you?" Riddick asked, crossing his arms.

"Feels me up, doesn't get far though before I deal him some serious medical bills. Point is, he is having this party tonight and he wanted me to go and I said no."

"And just now?"

"Asked me to be his girlfriend and I said no." Jack replied quickly and smiled at him, making him momentarily forget what had just happened. "Forget him and his stupid party, I missed you. We need to catch up. Mind if I take a shower, though?" She asked and he nearly rolled his eyes.

"You don't need my permission, go for it," he chuckled at her grin and tried not to notice how her pleated skirt moved around her thighs as she walked away from him.

"Riddick?" She poked her head around the corner of the kitchen, slightly intrigued by the fact that the ex-convict was standing in front of a stove. Cooking.

"Not gonna bite, Jack." He replied and she walked in, peering over his muscled arm to see what he was making.

"What's that?" She wasn't sure why he was frying ground beef.

"Tacos." He shortly replied and Jack made a vaguely interested sound and sat on the table behind him. "So, where should we start?"

"Your choice, big guy." She said and a silly grin plastered itself on her face as she watched his muscles glide and shift beneath his shirt. Shaking it off, she bent her head down to put up her hair and watched how smoothly he moved across the floor in his heavy boots.

"Job was harder then expected, a few complications arose, but as usual, they were…"

"Exterminated." Jack put in and smiled at Riddick, who rose an eyebrow in response.

"Assassins and mercs aren't what they used to be, we'll have to more careful from now on," Riddick said, a serious tone in his voice startling Jack. "We don't have to leave, no, but just be careful."

"Can do that."

"Good. Now, grades." Riddick ordered, turning the flame low on the stove and turning around. "Don't Jack, I know you got them two weeks ago, I get notified about this stuff…and parent meetings and stupid shit like that. Promised the holy man you'd stay smart, so let's see."

Jack shrugged and went through the kitchen and into their room, shifting through the papers on her desk that seemed to breed and increase on their own. She glanced up at the loft, lost in memory of one terrible night.

_Riddick groaned as he realized that he couldn't find the key to the apartment. He had just got back from a particularly long job and all he wanted was to take a shower and check on Jack. Searching his pockets again, he froze when he heard Jack whimper. _

_"Fuck keys," he growled and with a well-aimed body slam, opened the door. Shutting and locking it behind him, he took out a shiv, knowing that her attacker would've heard the door. _

_Sniffing the air, he realized that there was no one else in their apartment and he sheathed the shiv and quickly walked into their room, looking up to see Jack tossing back and forth on the loft._

_Nightmare._

_He remembered how she had taken care of him on the skiff and knew that he should return the favor at the very least. Pulling himself up onto the loft, he swung his legs around and once settled, saw how much pain Jack was in. _

_Her face was contorted with agony, her cries and whimpers sounded like a lioness who had lost her cub. He reached out a hand and pushed away the sweat-soaked hair from her clammy face. _

_"Jack, c'mon, wake up," he moved forward and slipped a hand under her neck, pulling it up slightly and gently taking the tangled hair from underneath her. She had short hair, but he thought it looked uncomfortable. _

_Settling himself behind her, he pulled her up onto his lap, wrapping the thin white sheet around her trembling form. She curled up against him, her head on his shoulder as he leaned against the wall. Shaking his head, Riddick held her against him, thinking how sad it was that no matter how physically strong someone was, they couldn't always fight off nightmares. _

_Jack had woken shortly after that, whispering his name into his shirt and hugging him. He had offered to put her back into bed but she had shook her head violently and snuggled back into him, quietly purring._

Finding the sheet, she walked back into the room and handed it to Riddick, who looked at it as if it were a life-sentence to a triple-max slam.

"It doesn't bite," repeating the phrase he had used earlier. "Riddick, look at the table in the upper left hand corner," she said and he did and compared that to the grades given and grunted. "At least Caveman Convict is satisfied with my grades," Jack joked and Riddick snorted, turning back to the stove.

"Good job, Jack." He said as he lifted the pan from the stove and with a spoon, pushed all the fried beef onto a plate. He suddenly eyed her and realized she looked thin, thinner then he remembered. "You been eating?"

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

"You look a little on the thin side, Jack. Sit," he motioned with his head towards the table and she sat on one side as he put down the taco ingredients in the middle. He sat down on the other side of the table and looked at Jack square in the eye.

"Cheers," she lifted her glass in salute and took a sip, setting it down before attacking the plates in front of her.

"Least you've got an appetite…" Riddick thought, realizing he should get his share of the food before she ate it all.

Hours passed to find Riddick looking out into the streets from a window, half of him listening to the streets, the other half to Jack, who seemed to be working. Riddick didn't know much about school work and the like, but he thought that most normal teenagers did stuff on Friday nights.

As if she had been listening to his thoughts, Jack appeared next to him as silent as a passing breeze and leaned her head against his shoulder. A growling rumble was emitted from Riddick and she guessed it was the beast he talked about, the beast he said he restrained. Shaking her head of those thoughts, she slipped her two small hands around his forearm and held it lightly. She could tell by the movement in his muscles that he looked down at her and by the tensing, he was curious, but cautious.

"You alright?" He asked and Jack nodded.

"Need help."

A short purr mixed with a humming growl was the affirmative.

"An assignment I have this weekend…I have to write about the importance of family relationships and use my own as an example to support what I say." Jack explained and Riddick didn't understand why she would need his help.

"You told me you remember your parents, what's the problem?" He looked down at her face, her short hair framing her delicate face that could rage like a tiger but be tamed like a kitten. By him at least.

"Yeah, they're my parents, but you're my family, Riddick." Jack replied and Riddick stood there in shock. Family? He was family to her? He didn't know how to respond verbally, so he pulled her into his arms and in front of him. He could feel her understanding his internal dilemma as he wrapped his arms around her thin waist. He had never had family and his beast was confused at the thought of a pack. Finally, after a few long minutes of silence filled with thought, he responded.

"Family or not, I don't know what your teacher would think if you handed in a three page paper on a mass-murdering convict as your family."

She laughed at this and turned around in his embrace and smiled up at him.

"Guess I should write about Imam then."

"Yeah, sounds good. Play it up though, Jack, something's telling me the last thing you'd want was to be called to the school shrink-"

"And by shrink you mean the most insane person in the school." She interrupted but her comment made him grin.

"On the basis of you not having a proper family life." He finished and she nodded.

She laid her head on his broad chest, calmed by his beating heart and even breathing. Before she realized it, her eyelids fluttered down and she was napping standing up. Against Riddick. She knew that he didn't mind because he didn't make any move to force her off of him. Jack didn't know how much time had passed before he picked her up and walked back into their room.

"Jackie, need to get up to the loft," he told her gently and she untangled herself from his arms and pulled herself up the ladder. He followed her up, smirking when he heard her form fall hard against the mattress. He watched her for a moment and realized that there was a chance she could still have nightmares.

But there was only one surefire way to make sure she had absolutely no nightmares.

Kicking off his boots, Riddick ordered the lights off and tugged off his goggles, setting them on the loft floor. He watched as Jack moved in her sleep to stretch herself across the entire bed for a moment before relaxing back into a different position.

Her purple form tensed and shifted once more as he sat down on the bed and finally moved over, as if sensing he was going to need room on the bed as well. As soon as he settled beneath the sheets and light blanket, Jack was on him like a leech, a purring leech at that. He almost laughed aloud at the thought of a leech crossed with a cat named Jack.

"G'night Jack."

Purr.

He smirked before closing his eyes for a light rest, feeling oddly safe knowing that he had a 'family' now.

**Thanks to these reviewers:**

**TRO – Ha, thought you would like that.**

**njrd – This one was a little longer, but I think I got just as much across.**

**bebe – Of course you stand by your comments and the hyperness is only more amusing. Adds a…different tone to the review.**

**XXXevilgrinXXX – Yummy indeed.**

**IT – Aw, thanks, I'm touched.**

**AliasSpyCrazy – Thanks, I think I do better with these shorter fics, I'm still burnt out on Devil's Grin, don't know if you read that, but it's hard to continue.**

**TrunksgirlBlaze27 – Glad you liked it.**

**QUESTION TO READERS:**

**I am thinking about continuing this beyond three installments, so I could get to some Riddick/Jack. Good idea? Bad idea? Want a muffin? No, actually, terrible things happen when I try the 'baked goods' thing. **


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